The leaky roofs, crumbling walls and broken furnaces plaguing Ontario schools aren’t just bad for students and teachers. They also erode local heritage, warn experts in architectural conservancy.That was the message at a symposium Saturday that brought together education and conservation advocates to explore their common goals when it comes to caring for the province’s school buildings.“If you defer maintenance enough, you end up having to replace schools,” says Catherine Nasmith, president of the Toronto chapter of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.The group wants more consideration given to the historical and architectural value of schools that are in disrepair or slated for rebuilding, as well as underused properties that boards are under financial pressure from the province to sell. The forum on schools was a first for the organization and highlighted the overlapping interests among parent groups, school boards and the conservancy.“It’s a new conversation for us,” said Nasmith. “We’ve been working on this from different perspectives.”Speakers blamed a “perfect storm” of inadequate provincial funding, politics and old buildings for a repair backlog that has tripled in the past 15 years to a whopping $16 billion for Ontario schools.In 2016, the Ministry of Education announced additional funding of $1.1 billion over two years for school repairs, bringing the total to $2.7 billion.But advocates and boards noted while it would cover annual maintenance needs, it wasn’t enough to make inroads into the backlog.Years of chronic underfunding has left school boards unable to catch up or plan, and limited to addressing the most dire problems, Krista Wylie, co-founder of the grassroots organization Fix Our Schools, told the meeting Saturday.“They are not choices between good and better,” she said. “They are choices between bad and worse.”Fix Our Schools is among m ...
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